The Sovereign Creator
For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they were all written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.
Psalm 139:13–16
We live in a day when increasingly people rage against the idea that there is a Sovereign Someone over them — God who determined their lives before they were born. The psalmist knew in faith that he was created by choice, made by God in full knowledge not only of the way his body was taking shape but also even what his days would bring forth. What was done in secret from humanity was known by Almighty God.
The psalmist’s faith in God’s good intentions toward him gave him peace and comfort. John Calvin wrote, “We need not then wonder if God, who formed man so perfectly in the womb, should have an exact knowledge of him after he is ushered into the world.” “Skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth” is not a negative statement of the divinely created means of human procreation — “There is no defilement in the marriage bed” (Heb. 13:4). The idea is that as Adam was formed from dust, so the creative act of God is repeated for every birth — from the heart of the earth mankind is formed. “You will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Gen. 3:19). But this also means that no human life escapes the notice of Almighty God — regardless of the circumstances of his or her conception. God still claims His role as our Creator.
But man shall not live by bread alone (Matt. 4:4), we are more than just biological life. We also live by the word of God, by the truth of God taking root in our soul, being received through faith, a new and spiritual life begins in each person who hears and believes.
The world today imagines that we are blank slates, “Creator-less” and parent-less, without any moral limitations to prevent us from becoming whatever we want. Nothing sacred or limiting is in our personality, so the world thinks. We may do what we want — even to the point of changing our gender if we want, so we rage against our limitations. We actually are born in a certain generation, to a certain mother and father, and with a distinct personality and body — things done independent of our choice and will — and out of these realities forms the mystery of our individuality. Some people make too much of race and gender, but let’s not imagine that these realities chosen for us by the Sovereign Creator are insignificant or entirely dispensable.
The attitude of faith accepts the unchangeable things about us because it trusts in God. We may change some things, and we often change physical weaknesses without any thought except that we have improved ourselves — cleft palates, club feet, mis-shapened teeth, lasik eye surgery, and many more serious maladies. But in today’s world the idea of the sovereignty of God in His creative act is cast aside in favor of the human will.
We have gone from improving our lot to seeking to re-establish and re-define ourselves. The only “honesty” that counts in today’s world is the so-called honesty with one’s own soul, rather than the greater honesty with our Creator and His work, accepting the sacredness of what He has made because He has made it. The human soul has no bearing to lift itself up in the place of God, and when it seeks to do so, when it dispenses with ethics, God-established institutions such as marriage between male and female, and rages in the face of the Almighty demanding the freedom and the right to do whatever it desires, then it has cast off on an unknown journey throwing overboard all compasses, charts, sextants, and common sense. And this is the ship many are seeking passage on — the ship of the foolish, rebellious, faithless human race.
How different the faith that rests its worries in God, that leaves the mysteries there, that faces challenges and deformities and weaknesses with faith in God. Here is the peace of God that guards our hearts, when we leave the issues that are greater than we are in the hands of God and trust in His love for us. We need today to rest in Him and to trust Him, to humble ourselves before Him — accepting our failures, trusting in His goodness, accepting the redemption that comes through Christ Jesus, instead of raging against circumstances and the God who claims to be above them.
We are often told that these issues of sexual and self-identity are very complicated and complex and that we should seek to understand and not to judge. In general I agree, we all need to be “swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God” (James 1:19–20). We should not presume expertise in areas where we are limited in knowledge, nor should we ever forget the impact on our souls of this sinful world, the scars that trouble us.
But we should not see the sovereignty of God and the grace of God as enemies of one another. The same Lord who saves is the Lord who creates. The Lord who redeems is the Lord who reigns. We can rest in Him and trust Him. In the grace of God we can improve ourselves, we can be forgiven and cleansed and a new hope established in our hearts. We can move forward confidently knowing that He is for us and within us, that He will guide us and bless us. We are more than conquerors in Him who loved us (Rom. 8:37). But bowing before Him means also trusting in His sovereign act of creation.
